cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Broadband drops every hour, possibly caused by realspeed

rid1
Tuning in

Hi,

I have the symmetrical Gig2 service. Over the past few weeks, I have been experiencing periodic packet drops every hour, specifically around 12 minutes past the hour. Despite having the Hub 5x in router mode, this issue persists.

Upon investigation, I noticed that I can replicate these packet drops when I run a samknows/realspeed test. It appears that realspeed is running a test against my line at these intervals. Strangely, when I initiate a download of approximately 20Mbps, the dropout does not occur.

I have tested this behavior across different devices, both via Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections. Additionally, I have set up a BQM, which clearly shows the regular drops. The absence of drops during the 20Mbps downloads further supports my suspicion that realspeed testing is causing the issue. How do I get realspeed to stop running tests against my line every hour, as it disrupts the service.

23cd3ea860f7ba7cfc3e0e5229b0db3867a06498-21-04-2024.png

Thanks

37 REPLIES 37

jpeg1
Alessandro Volta

As you are on a new service, this could very well be VM running tests. 

- jpeg1
My name is NOT Alessandro. That's just a tag Virginmedia sticks on some contributors. Please ignore it.

Sabrina_B
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hi @rid1 👋.

Thanks for reaching out to us, and welcome to the Community Forums. Apologies for the issues that you are having with your service. We cannot confirm if we are doing any testing in the background, can we ask are all devices disconnecting, is it at the same time and are there any changes in the lights on the hub?

Sabrina

Looks like the usual VM remote speed testing of the XGS-PON network to me. 

Just to add the putting green latency of the new network compared to the usual Docsis performance is very impressive. 

---------------
Cancel VM here
Complain to VM
here
Demand compensation from VM here
Demand your call recordings here
Monitor the state of your VM connection here

Hi. Thank you for your reply. I have tested this with and without devices attached and the behaviour is the same. There is no change on the light of the router. It does not disconnect from the Internet. The broadband becomes unstable during this period. If I am on a voip call then this is interrupted. If I work from home then my citrix connection is also interrupted. The only way that I could prevent this from occurring is to run a continuous download of 2 Mbps. This is annoying as for £90 a month I should not have to do this "workaround". I've previously had BT FTTP to my house and did not experience any issues.

Regards

Client62
Alessandro Volta

Applying a continuous load masks a connection stability issue, that is the opposite of what one might expect.

Thanks for coming back to us @rid1 

As you are on the XGS-PON service, you do have a ring-fenced team to help with any technical issues.

Please give us a call on 150 / 0345 454 1111 and we can assist further.

Best wishes.

John_GS
Forum Team


Need a helpful hand to show you how to make a payment? Check out our guide - How to pay my Virgin Media bill

I called the "special team" . They apparently made a few changes to my settings but I was not surprised that this did not work. I have given up hope that they will resolve this. I have seen another user having the same issue. Latency Spikes : r/VirginMedia (reddit.com) . VM should stop this testing as this is affecting the quality of the service! Is this something that can be reported to OFCOM?

legacy1
Alessandro Volta

VM and there unless Statistics lets run a speed test on a user! OO look 1Gb and 100Mb upload lets test another user! what is the bloody point! 

---------------------------------------------------------------

haywardgg
Dialled in

I can confirm, after 1 week of testing, that this is indeed Samknows related.

I'm on a Gig2 package and signed up so I could stream, but unfortunately the hourly packet loss due to Samknows is cutting me off and is making it impossible to stream consistently. I've asked a representative to look into it, and if it can't be fixed I'm leaving the service. Whoever made the decision to use an intrusive service breaking tool like Samknows, needs to be fired.

I'm disappointed to see that VirginMedia have known about this all along, yet they play dumb when you phone up and point it out to them. Saying they'll send round an engineer to test cables, etc..

Screenshot 2024-07-13 at 13-27-05 Broadband Quality Monitor thinkbroadband.png

It's just a simulation. Enjoy it while you can.
My Gig2 (FTTP / XGS-PON / Symmetrical) BQM